Ascendant
by VulkansNodosaurus
Summary: In which Theon pays the iron price early, and the currents shift. One-shot.


It had been luck alone that he'd killed a rich man. Not even a knight - a merchant's son, rather, who had come with the Kingslayer's host in order to... well, the gods (Theon didn't much care which) knew why. Perhaps he'd thought to make a name for himself. But he should have stuck to trading; his armor was pretty enough, but one well-aimed arrow was enough to cut through it.

Theon hadn't thought much of taking the jewelry at the time, but when the time came to sail to Pyke, he'd remembered the custom of the iron price. It had come suddenly, in truth, and he'd spent some time trying to take a selection that made him look neither like a whore nor like a septon. It was a bit of a shock, a reminder of how much he'd forgotten. He remembered enough not to let it show, though. True, Rodrik and Maron were dead, but he knew that the Isles did not tolerate weakness.

He'd still been shocked at how his father had reacted to his return; and shocked even more when Balon Greyjoy threw Robb's letter into the fire. Yet Theon, while wounded by his words, decided after a few minutes' thought that they were baseless. His father had gone mad, for the North really was the natural ally of the Ironborn in this war, and to attack it merely gave. And he would die before he betrayed Robb, in any case.

It was not easy, to search for men he could discuss the matter with on an island he had not seen for ten years. Aeron's attitude was little better than his father's, and when Theon asked around for his sister he found that she was on Great Wyk. He found his uncle Victarion, though. The Iron Fleet's lord captain, at least, had not changed since Theon had seen him last, except that perhaps his mood was worse than Theon had usually experienced. Still, he spoke without Aeron's or Balon's disdain.

"What does my father plan to do, then?" Theon asked him, after a couple cups of wine. "Or does he plan to have himself crowned and sit on the Isles, waiting for whichever Baratheon wins to remember they exist?"

"He means to reave," Victarion said between gulps. "To attack the North, I'd guess, since he has spurned the alliance."

"So does he mean to reave or to fight in the North? Because I can tell you, uncle, that whether it's treasure or women he seeks, attacking Cape Kraken and the Stony Shore and Bear Island will be more like to lose gold than to gain it. Unless you mean to sail around Westeros, and to White Harbor. And no matter which of the three stags wins their southern war, any one of them will turn the might of the Seven Kingdoms against the Ironborn."

Victarion frowned, deep in thought. "Well," he said, "you're not wrong, that much is certain. But then, your father is no fool. I suspect he merely means to speak with his captains as he makes his plans."

In his heart, Theon knew his father's plans were already set. If their discussion that first night had not confirmed it, his two subsequent attempts to get his father to see reason did.

It took a month and a half for the captains to gather,. Theon spent them trying to talk to the lords, trying to scout out their feelings on the matter. In the end, Rodrik Harlaw, who saw right through his questions, gave the best advice. "Most of the captains," he said, "are simple enough men - simple to say not complex, not stupid. You need merely to talk with them enough that they do not feel you a stranger, not to try and weave elaborate schemes. And talk to some of the smallfolk, too, and not just in the brothels." He frowned. "As to me, I think breaking the Seven Kingdoms as you and Robb intend is a great gamble, but at the least it is a gamble that can be won. My sons went to the Drowned God's halls in vain; if I join them, I would prefer it be for a war the maesters will remember as a victory, not as a farce. Which is not to say I am looking forward to it, in either case."

The grand feast came the day after Asha arrived; Theon had greeted his sister at the docks, though their conversation was cold. Asha had designs, it seemed, on ruling the Isles after his father. Balon made a speech in which he declared his intent to raid the North; and after, Theon stood up, and made his own speech. He spoke of the wastelands of the Stony Shore and the gold of Casterly Rock, but he spoke also of the times before Aegon's Conquest, a time he knew as well as any of the captains did. He spoke of Hoare longships being sighted from Bear Island to the Arbor, and of what had brought an end to that - dragons, and after them the unity of the kingdoms. That the Old Way could not live once again - indeed, even the New Way could not truly bloom - unless Aegon's throne was shattered.

And then he said some more about the gold of Casterly Rock.

"Theon king!" came the cry from some of the captains after his speech, but the hall was quiet, and for a fraction of a moment there was a spike of fear, or rather a recognition of reality, that he could lose after all, that he was going to be killed -

And then Asha stood, and all but asked their father to leave the room. "Theon king!" she yelled, and then the hall was joining in applause, and before he knew it they were sailing for Lannisport.

He'd relearned some of sailing since his arrival, but he still relied on his crew more than he should have. Some would have felt, at all of that, that their rule was a lie. But it mattered not at all to Theon, when Victarion burned the Lannister fleet at anchor once again, and then the Ironborn burned Lannisport. Theon did take a salt-wife in the sack, but in the end he found that he preferred women that came to him willingly. Fortunately, he had not taken any serious scars, and there really was no shortage of women willing to lie with a King - even if most of those, annoyingly, wanted some favor or other, and usually not mere coin.

Stafford Lannister marched an army to reclaim the city. Theon, in the meantime, planned raids throughout the Westerlands, and plotted more to come in the Reach. Stafford's recruits were not even half-trained, and the most successful of them were the ones able to flee into the Rock; yet in the process one of them left a gate open, a gate Theon was for once first through. Casterly Rock was well-built indeed, but without the men to defend it Daven Lannister had to surrender nearly half of it before he reached a defensible position. Still, there were stores enough that the Lannisters could last years.

After that... well, after that the true pillage came, so much so that Theon grew tired of the smell of fire. Robb Stark found a goat path and took the Golden Tooth from the back, as Edmure Tully besieged it from the front, and after that the Westerlands were truly defenseless. Theon met his brother at Ashemark, and they embraced, both now with a crown on their heads. Embraced - and made plans; for Renly Baratheon had died at Storm's End, by an assassin's blade, and Stannis now had the stormlords' loyalty, yet Tywin Lannister was still making way westwards. Robb set a trap, with the rivermen barricading the Red Fork as the northmen led a merry chase through the West. As to Theon, he found that his captains were becoming rather less excited with the decreasing selection of plunder. And the fertility of the Reach was well-known indeed. So he agreed to split the westerlands in half, the coast being given to the Ironborn - with Asha being left in charge of the siege of the Rock, and promised its lordship if she took it - and the interior to the riverlords. Some of the westerlords did jump ship, the Westerlings of the Crag among them, but there were enough still in Tywin's army that Theon did not have a shortage of land to promise.

In the end Tywin's host was crushed between wolf, trout, and kraken, but it reaped a heavy toll for its defeat. The Young Wolf was bedridden for a month, though he made more or less a full recovery. Theon, by that time, was in the Shield Islands, which was where he met the last of his uncles. Euron was mad and ruthless and every bit the monster he was said to be, but he swore loyalty to Theon, though both knew it would only last so long as the Crow's Eye had no other choice. In the east, meanwhile, Stannis had been crushed on the Blackwater, and the massive host of the Tyrells was heading westwards again. They had perhaps a hundred thousand men, or perhaps only half that, but the situation was desperate either way; so Theon turned to Euron, who promised a ritual that would win the war, if he were allowed to sack Oldtown, a course the Reader warned against. Theon had to admit it was by luck alone that he stabbed Euron in the back with his dirk early enough to prevent the city's total destruction, but late enough to see the host of Randyll Tarly cut into a uniform pink mist. And after that, Lord Hightower descended from his lighthouse and knelt to an Iron King for the first time in millennia.

And after that, the victory had come in truth. The Tyrells negotiated the return of Sansa Stark and the execution of Cersei Lannister and Joffrey last-name-depends-on-political-affiliation, with Tommen sent off to the Wall. Stannis was crowned King of the Storm in absentia, as he had sailed to fight wildlings at the Wall, of all things. Robb was busy marrying a Frey, and planning the reconstruction of Moat Cailin - as well as mourning his missing siblings, for Bran had somehow vanished and Arya had never been found. Dorne was now independent, although with Doran Martell's silence it was hard to tell whether they even knew it - well, someone had poisoned the Mountain, at least, that much was certain. Edmure's victories had led to some of the riverlords calling for him to be King of the Trident in his own right, causing no shortage of awkwardness between him and Robb. And as for the Vale, according to rumors it was on the verge of itself dividing into two or three independent kingdoms.

Theon cared little for that, right now, little for the wars of men at all. He stood atop the Hightower, the Mad Maid and Marwyn to either side of him, looking out into the endless western sea. He knew some would call him mad for his choice in advisors, but those people had likely not seen the Honeywine Massacre, as Randyll Tarly's last battle was beginning to be called.

"You are sure, then," he said, turning to face Malora Hightower, putting on one of his more ominous smiles. "That the Drowned God is evil."

"Not the Drowned God," Malora backtracked, though it did not seem to be out of fear. "The Deep Ones are in truth no closer to the vastness of the archetype that tales of the Drowned God stemmed from as the Others are to the Old Gods of the North. And there may be... power, still, in the other depths, for those daring enough to seize it, though such magics always transform their wielder. But no matter what they are, the Deep Ones are coming, along with threats from every other direction." She frowned. "The Others in the northern ice; the Deep Ones in the western seas; and perhaps monsters that would end all life in the east and the south, as well, with whatever Yi Ti built the Five Forts against among them. They cannot be negotiated with, Theon. You must remember that. They are not a part of your game of thrones."

Theon smiled, this time making sure it was a more heroic sort of smile.

"It's not my game of thrones," he said. "And if beating the Deep Ones is impossible... well, I've managed the impossible before."

It was luck, every time, of course; luck and audacity. Theon would still admit, if asked by someone he truly trusted, that he sometimes wondered if he was a fraud. But then, he would say, with how much he had already achieved, if he was a fraud then he was a king among them.


End file.
